PENSACOLA, Fla. — A Pensacola man says he got a “front row seat” to the 9/11 terror attacks 25 years ago.
Lester Smith, a New York native, says he can recall that morning like it was yesterday. He says he can still smell 9/11.
Smith lived in New York City for 30 years.
On the morning of Sep. 11, 2001, he was riding his bicycle on his way to work as a personal driver. Then he was struck by an emergency vehicle, shattering his shoulder blade.
He biked to the nearest hospital, St. Vincent’s, when bloody bodies started pouring into the emergency room.
“And I knew immediately that people just didn’t make it out. And it was, yeah, it was a mess,” Smith said. “I don’t know if you ever smelled blood. And, you know, like, where you just have an emergency room of, they’re working on people. You know, it’s triage. Who can you save, who cannot, you know. And organized chaos. But you could see the look on their faces.”
Smith says he then walked home from the hospital a few hours later.
“Walked home down 7th Avenue and hundreds of thousands of people walking,” Smith said. “I wasn’t walking against that tide and there’s a first. You know, again, they see that many people not speaking not saying a word. Every 10th person covered in dust blood trails underneath women dressed in business attire. And they’d run out of their shoes and their feet were bloody and their stockings were ripped and they didn’t care. You know, men too, you know and it kind of blew my mind because of the silence just feet shuffling, you know like shell shock.”
25 years later, Smith says he can still smell three things; blood, death, and smoke.
WEAR News asked Smith to describe how he feels today about what he witnessed. He simply said, “Angry.”
Watch Smith’s full interview below:
WEAR News interviews New York native Lester Smith, who says he was there during the 9/11 terror attacks.